Water Under the Bridge
by SerendipitousPixel
Summary: In which Harry and Hermione are very distantly related and an ancient rift is healed. After all, do they not say that Muggle-borns are descended from Squibs?


**A/N:  
** **This was entirely unplanned and largely plot-less, but the idea seized me in the middle of an otherwise dull car journey and this was the (frankly embarrassingly bad) result.**

 **I hope you manage to enjoy this – do review so I at least know what to improve if nothing else.  
I attribute the fancy classical writing style (if noticeable at any point) to the fact that Wystan hasn't decided to update his vocabulary since the Victorian era, and not at all because I was reading **_**Our Mutual Friend**_ **right before writing this.**

 **Disclaimer: I'm not a multi-millionaire (as much as I would like to be) and therefore not J.K. Rowling. In other words, I don't own the world of Harry Potter and am writing this for fun rather than profit (or whatever).**

 **Just to clarify, the only characters I actually invented are Wystan and Athelstan Potter, along with Eliza Parsons, and miscellaneous unnamed descendants (the ones mentioned are all cannon, although I made up Hermione's mother's name – do let me know if you can find her real one anywhere)**

* * *

" _Family… whatever yeh say, blood's important. . . ." – Hagrid (drunk)_

Wystan Potter may have been estranged from his family, but that did not mean he did not care for them: while his own father (a certain Athelstan Potter, and arguably the most Slytherin-like of all the Potters in that generation) may have neglected Wystan in favour of his _magical_ sister and effectively banished him to the Muggle world, the majority of the Potters were more like his uncle Ralston (an ardent campaigner of Muggle rights and supporter of the International Statute of Secrecy) and perfectly supportive of Wystan's lack of magic.

At least, that was what Wystan Potter told himself as he watched the lives of the future generations of Potters and Parsonses (his own descendants from his marriage to the respectable Eliza Parsons – a Muggle, yes, but also blessed with equal measures of intelligence, compassion and beauty) unfold.

He watched as the Potter family continued their presence in the background of society, occasionally rising to the forefront – as in the case of Henry Potter (criticiser of the Minister for Magic, who had passed a legislation barring any wizard from helping the First World War), or his son Fleamont (inventor of Sleekeazy's hair potion), or _his_ son James (renowned Auror, martyr against Voldemort's tyranny and most importantly – to Wystan, at least – the first Potter to marry a Muggle-born for generations), or _his_ son Harry – the most famous Potter of all.

Wystan watched too as the Parsons family developed through the ages - like the Potters, the Parsons preferred to stay in the background of society despite their impressive heritage (an Irish noble of the same name), save of course for Charles Parsons – inventor of the steam turbine. While Charles had brought a tidy fortune to the family – enough to live comfortably for many a year – the Parsonses continued much as any family did through those times.

In fact, for all their similarities, the two families may never have crossed paths again if the dormant gene had not resurfaced – it was the daughter of a certain Jean Granger (née Parsons, and the last bearer of that name – Wystan mourned the loss of what he saw as a fine surname and consequently paid little detail to the life of Jean, other than that she was a married dentist) that did it. Wystan recalled that her name was Hermione, but like her mother he had not paid much attention to her – until, that was, she received her Hogwarts letter aged 11.

Wystan then watched as she went to Hogwarts, and was branded as the friendless know-it-all - despite her eagerness to become a part of this novel world. He watched too as the latest (and last of) the Potter family joined Hogwarts the same year as Hermione. At first any friendship between the pair seemed unlikely (despite both naturally being Gryffindors) – Wystan reconciled himself to waiting another generation to see if there would be any conciliation between the two families.

When the Hallowe'en of 1991 came, however, something Wystan had never expected happened – the pair (along with a Weasley fellow by the name of Ron) became fast friends. Wystan watched with joy as the friendship only grew over the years – the inevitable turbulence associated with adolescence only serving to strengthen the bonds. Eventually, the pair had practically become family (both being married to the exponentially expanding Weasley family).

Wystan saw then that the rift that had been caused by him being born as a squib so many centuries ago had finally been healed – Potters and Parsons once more reunited – and that he could finally rest in peace.

FIN


End file.
